CORRESPONDENCE.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume IX, Issue 915, 5 February 1881, Page 5

CORRESPONDENCE.

[JFe do not hold ourselves responsible for opinions expressed by our correspondents].

SOUTH PACIFIC PETROLEUM COMPANY.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir, —As you seem to take an especial interest in the well-doing and governing of the Petroleum Company, or, I may say now, Companies, I desire to inform you and the public that the office for the registration of shares, said to be established by the Sydney Board of Directors of the South Pacific Petroleum Company in Gisborne, is a delusion and a snare. This morning I called on Mr. Berry to ask him if he was prepared to transfer some shares I had in my pocket, when he informed me that he had only been furnished with forms of receipts for scrip for transfers deposited with him which had to be sent on to Sydney. These scrip receipt forms contain a receipt for money to be charged as a transfer fee. Now, under the rules of the Company, the transfer and the issue of the scrip certificate are imperative on the Company without any fee. The Directors, or Secretary, may try to wring a paltry fee out of the troublesome Gisborne proprietary, but I assure them that it is illegal, as the rules give them no power to exact it. I expect Mr. Berry is not the man to permit himself to be a tool in the hands of a self-sufficient autocratic, and apparently under-educated Directorial Board which has, under the cloak of the sincerest" economy, caused an extravagant expenditure on the present works, which up to this moment are entirely futile. The only good the work so far has done is to show what was previously stated to be the case, viz., that from 63 feet down to the present depth of 160 feet, oil bearing veins of soft papa sandstone are cut through, beyond this, there is an absolute certainty of unwarrantable expense against the shareholders from the position taken of ignoring all previous exploration. lam glad to learn that a meeting of shareholders is contemplated that may perhaps waken up the Sydney shareholders to a sense of their situation.—l am, Ac., Petroleum.